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Higher Taxes, Higher Government Spending, Slower Economic Growth

J.D. Foster and Curtis Dubay, writing at The Foundry (“Of Course Higher Taxes Slow Growth — A Response to Diamond and Saez“), make mincemeat of Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez’s arguments for higher taxes on “the rich.” Implicit in Foster and Dubay’s takedown of Diamond and Saez is the demonstrably strong (and negative relationship) between government spending and economic growth.

Spending is funded by taxes, after all. And even when spending is funded by borrowing it amounts to a tax on the productive sectors of the economy. How is that? When government sell bonds to the public it redirects money from productive uses in the private sector to unproductive and counter-productive uses in the so-called public sector (i.e., government). The thievery is no less destructive — but more apparent — when the Fed creates money out of thin air to finance government spending.

The bottom line is that for every 10 percentage points by which government spending rises, the rate of growth declines by 0.7 percentage points. If you think that 0.7 percent is negligible, try compounding it over a lifespan of 80 years. In that time, a sustained 10 percent rise in government spending will reduce the average person’s real income by more than 40 percent.

That, my friends, is soak-the-rich Obamanomics at work. Apologists for Obamanomics, like Diamond and Saez, should be ashamed of themselves for abetting economically destructive demagoguery.

On Liberty

What is liberty? It is peaceful, willing coexistence and its concomitant: beneficially cooperative behavior.

John Stuart Mill opined that "the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others." But who determines whether an act is harmful or harmless? Acts deemed harmless by an individual are not harmless if they subvert the societal bonds of trust and self-restraint upon which liberty itself depends.

Which is not to say that all social regimes are regimes of liberty. Liberty requires voice -- the freedom to dissent -- and exit -- the freedom to choose one's neighbors and associates. Voice and exit depend, in turn, on the rule of law under a minimal state.

Liberty, because it is a social phenomenon and not an innate condition of humanity, must be won and preserved by an unflinching defense of a polity that fosters liberty through its norms, and the swift and certain administration of justice within that polity.

The governments of the United States and most States have long since ceased to foster liberty, but Americans are hostage in their own land and have no choice but to strive for the restoration of liberty, or something closer to it.

Notes about Usage

"State" (with a capital "S") refers to one of the United States, and "States" refers to two or more of them. "State" and "States," thus used, are proper nouns because they refer to a unique entity or entities: one or more of the United States, the union of which, under the terms and conditions stated in the Constitution, is the raison d’être for the nation. I reserve the uncapitalized word "state" for a government, or hierarchy of them, which exerts a monopoly of force within its boundaries.

The words "liberal," "progressive," and their variants are in quotation marks because they refer to persons and movements whose statist policies are, in fact, destructive of liberty and progress.

Marriage, in the Western tradition, predates the state and legitimates the union of one man and one woman. As such, it is an institution that is vital to civil society and therefore to the enjoyment of liberty. The recognition of a more-or-less permanent homosexual pairing as a kind of marriage is both ill-advised and illegitimate. Such an arrangement is therefore a "marriage" (in quotation marks) or, more accurately, a homosexual cohabitation contract (HCC).

Comments & Correspondence

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